Chihiro's parents eat food meant for gods and turn into pigs. To survive, the girl signs her name away to the witch Yubaba and takes a job scrubbing in a bathhouse where rivers, frogs and a faceless eating-thing come to soak. The plot runs on small tasks done well: clean a foul stink-spirit, feed a polite monster, remember a name. There is no chosen-one arc. Chihiro just keeps her word and stays decent, and that is enough. The bathhouse itself is the star, packed corner to corner with detail you only catch on a second watch.
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